Nihilism-O-Matic
I'm
really confused here, so I would just like to pose one really quick
question to recalibrate my moral compass. If there was some
organization that financed abortions for poor nonwhite women, would
that be a good thing or a bad thing?
I am so old that I can remember a time when such an organization would have been a bad thing and all progressives would have roundly condemned it as "war against weak". But lately I am not so sure. Things get even more confusing when saying that abortion is a good thing since it decreases crime can be smart lateral thinking and a basis for a pop-economics bestseller, or it can be evil eugenics and racism requiring public penance and apology, and as far as I can tell the difference depends only on who makes this claim.
In a similar vein, I am not quite sure why calling women "hos" and "bitches" can elicit so very different reactions simply depending on who says this. Perhaps setting controversial opinions and laments to catchy beats and tunes makes them easier to swallow and accept in general. For example, few people like to listen to losers whining about their low lot in life, but many people still like listening to blues. Again, I am sure that there are important lessons to be learned here on how to best market your views to other people. Perhaps I should get a funky soundtrack on this website and also following me physically whenever I go somewhere.
These apparent paradoxes might also perhaps be special cases of a more general phenomenon that I once noticed: instead of what is said, who says it is waaaay more important in practice. I think that I noticed this strange phenomenon for the first time while I was in second grade or so, but this notion took all this time to finally click and coalesce. It is clearly a topic for another much longer posting later.
But now, let's get back to abortion. I have been pro-choice as long as I remember, although without that little smirk that profeminist men tend to have when they proclaim that why yes of course they support free abortions. Sure you do, buddy, I'm sure you do. I also like abortion as a philosophical problem since it so nicely reveals, for example, that pretty much everyone has a set of nice public principles that they tell to others, and then a private set of real principles guiding how they really act. To vividly demonstrate this, the article "The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have" explains what people really think about Down syndrome, as is revealed by their real-world actions.
Myself, I strongly support all kinds of genetic engineering and prenatal testing, for reasons that I explained in my earlier posting "The genes of tomorrow". I just happen to think that it is objectively better to be healthy, smart, desirable and strong than it is to be sickly, stupid, undesirable and weak. Quite a few people disagree with this view, of course, and some even seem to believe that Down syndrome is actually a blessing, something to hope for and desire. This particular delusion seems to be more common in Christians than it is in leftists, who wisely lose their normal act of IQ denial at this point. But anyway, here's to hoping that these people get their wish and give birth to many more Down syndrome babies in future.
I am so old that I can remember a time when such an organization would have been a bad thing and all progressives would have roundly condemned it as "war against weak". But lately I am not so sure. Things get even more confusing when saying that abortion is a good thing since it decreases crime can be smart lateral thinking and a basis for a pop-economics bestseller, or it can be evil eugenics and racism requiring public penance and apology, and as far as I can tell the difference depends only on who makes this claim.
In a similar vein, I am not quite sure why calling women "hos" and "bitches" can elicit so very different reactions simply depending on who says this. Perhaps setting controversial opinions and laments to catchy beats and tunes makes them easier to swallow and accept in general. For example, few people like to listen to losers whining about their low lot in life, but many people still like listening to blues. Again, I am sure that there are important lessons to be learned here on how to best market your views to other people. Perhaps I should get a funky soundtrack on this website and also following me physically whenever I go somewhere.
These apparent paradoxes might also perhaps be special cases of a more general phenomenon that I once noticed: instead of what is said, who says it is waaaay more important in practice. I think that I noticed this strange phenomenon for the first time while I was in second grade or so, but this notion took all this time to finally click and coalesce. It is clearly a topic for another much longer posting later.
But now, let's get back to abortion. I have been pro-choice as long as I remember, although without that little smirk that profeminist men tend to have when they proclaim that why yes of course they support free abortions. Sure you do, buddy, I'm sure you do. I also like abortion as a philosophical problem since it so nicely reveals, for example, that pretty much everyone has a set of nice public principles that they tell to others, and then a private set of real principles guiding how they really act. To vividly demonstrate this, the article "The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have" explains what people really think about Down syndrome, as is revealed by their real-world actions.
Myself, I strongly support all kinds of genetic engineering and prenatal testing, for reasons that I explained in my earlier posting "The genes of tomorrow". I just happen to think that it is objectively better to be healthy, smart, desirable and strong than it is to be sickly, stupid, undesirable and weak. Quite a few people disagree with this view, of course, and some even seem to believe that Down syndrome is actually a blessing, something to hope for and desire. This particular delusion seems to be more common in Christians than it is in leftists, who wisely lose their normal act of IQ denial at this point. But anyway, here's to hoping that these people get their wish and give birth to many more Down syndrome babies in future.
Freakonomics claimed that legalized abortion cut crime in the United States, but Steve Sailer raised a pretty good counter-argument. I believe that the truth lies somewhere in the middle, which is so often the case with controversial issues.
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
Posted by Anonymous | 12:16 PM
What little there is left of a Down's Syndrome debate can be ended with two words: "opportunity cost". That is also the concept that most opponents of eugenics do not properly apply to the subject.
Posted by Dog of Justice | 5:04 PM
It just might be that some people have found a way to persue their eugenics agenda by wrapping it up in rhetoric that sounds leftist and feminist ...
More power to them, if so.
Posted by beenaround | 10:17 PM